


All of the Time in the Whole Wide World

by AliLamba



Category: Veronica Mars - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-05
Updated: 2015-01-05
Packaged: 2018-03-05 15:17:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3124955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliLamba/pseuds/AliLamba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spoiler alert: Catalina does work out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All of the Time in the Whole Wide World

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MimiLaRue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MimiLaRue/gifts).



> PROMPTS: comedy/smut/fluff/hurtcomfort – 1) LoVe’s first date (because Catalina didn’t work out), 2) sneaking around at the time of MAD, and 3) feeding the seagulls on a foggy morning

 

Veronica listens to the sounds of her engine cooling with trepidation in her heart. For the fourth time since she’d left her house after breakfast and driven right past Neptune High School (home of the Pirates), she questions her own sanity.

 _You shouldn’t be here. You should just go back to school. You are playing **hooky** Veronica Mars I don’t care how legit that doctor’s note was_.

Veronica worries her lower lip. She probably shouldn’t tell Logan she put in a doctor’s note for him as well. She certainly couldn’t tell Wallace, who is so dutifully prepared to explain the dangers of strep throat to anyone who calls the phony doctor’s office of MD Coolchild, MD.

Wallace’s idea. The name, that is.

_Okay, now or never._

She inhales a deep breath, grabs her bag off the passenger’s side seat, and opens the car door.

The walk toward the pier shouldn’t have taken so long. But when you’re on the lookout for danger, or for someone to remind you you are in a place you do not belong, it can feel a lot longer.

Her brain counts the boats as she walks. Some of them look bigger than her apartment. She presses her lips together, and sees _slip five_ in the distance. Her pulse picks up and her stomach flips over when she recognizes the top of Logan’s head in the distance.

The nerves buzzing in her belly like so many bees are confusing. She’s not sure which option is more tempting: skip the rest of the way? Or turn tail and run.

Her teeth clench together when she approaches the boat. She must have made some noise somehow, because Logan suddenly looks up, and his cheeks split when he recognizes her. “Veronica,” he says, like he was expecting someone else.

Veronica comes to an awkward stop in front of the boat. She’s not sure what to say, which means she resorts to sarcasm. “Hi I’m looking for my boat? I think it’s called the USS dead president something?”

Logan’s grin melts into something even more appreciative, and he jogs toward her, leaps onto the dock, and envelopes her in a kiss.

The reason she skipped school is becoming alarmingly clear.

They kiss until they’re both satisfied, when deep inhaling kisses turn into feather-light pecks. “Hey,” Logan murmurs. Veronica smiles. “Hey,” she returns.

Logan makes a deeply contented sound in the back of his throat and leans back. He rubs his hands on the outsides of Veronica’s arms and looks into the distance. Before she can offer him a penny he’s hopping into the boat and offering her his hand.

“Welcome aboard,” he jokes, his tone light.

She takes his hand with a warning glance. “If you call this the Love Boat at any time I will leave.”

“Ah yes, that is my other boat.” She looks at him sharply, and Logan squints at her. “It’s a boat, Veronica, not a euphemism.”

Veronica steps aboard. “Says the one with a boat.”

She looks around when she has two feet on the floorboards. It’s not as big as she thought it would be. White all over, it looks more like it was built for speed and short, exhilarating journeys rather than languishing luxury of the coast of some exotic island. If people bought Aston Martins because they resembled penises, then this boat would be a very pointy boob.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing,” she answers too quickly. She puts down her bag and walks toward the front of the boat. “If I’m not mistaken, I believe this is the… _fore?_ ”

She looks over her shoulder as she walks, in time to see Logan’s spreading grin. “Believe so,” he agrees. “Or rather, you’re moving forward.”

Veronica purses her lips, not liking to be corrected. She turns back toward the _aft_ and finally notices the champagne. “Oh Logan,” she says in a low voice, trying not to sound too impressed. “You brought snacks.”

She doesn’t want to see how smug he looks, so she doesn’t turn when he enters her peripheral vision. He radiates self-satisfaction as he walks to the bucket of champagne and pulls it out. “Well I figure if we’re going to do the whole _boat_ thing we should probably do it right.”

“That and champagne on a boat is a total panty dropper.” Logan whips his head around too quickly. His surprise softens when he sees she is still fully clothed and frowning at him. “Don’t tease,” he begs.

Logan turns his attention back to the champagne, and he busies himself with the process of opening it. Veronica slides into the cream leather booth. She picks out a strawberry from the fruit platter someone (probably not Logan) had set out for them and takes a quick bite. It tastes perfect: sweet, tangy, cold and fresh.

“I feel like the star of my own rap video,” she observes.

Logan pops the champagne and fills two glasses quickly. He’s smirking. “Pretty sure one of us would have to be in a bikini for that.”

Veronica accepts her glass with mock apology. “Aw shoot and I have a _no belly button_ clause in my contract.”

Logan looks down at his own chest, then puffs it for her approval. “I could pull it off. Lay down some of them sweet rhymes for me Veronica Mars.”

Veronica puts down her strawberry and attempts to beat box. “Yo my name is V Mars I gotta license to kill.”

Logan takes a quick sip of champagne and frowns at her consolingly. “Ah. Plagiarism. Not off to a great start.”

Veronica pouts and takes another sip of her champagne.

“It’s my first day,” she points out. “And I have no producer.”

Logan puts down his glass and leans over the table so as to properly kiss her on the mouth. “I would volunteer, but you already have me wearing the bikini.”

Veronica grins, and Logan’s next kiss lands half on her teeth.

“Oh Logan. You have me warming to this whole _hooky_ idea,” she admits cautiously.

***

“Okay! Water safety!”

Veronica is beginning to sour on this whole hooky idea.

Logan had evicted her from her seat in the booth, and is now holding up a bright orange life vest that matches the one he wears.

“In the event of a water landing,” he shouts, as if he’s dictating for a crowd. “Please keep your life vest on and try to stay in place! Do not attempt to return to shore if you do not think you can make it. Depleting energy is a killer, people. So are sharks.”

Veronica squints at him. “Really Logan? Sharks?”

He makes a biting motion at her, and Veronica rolls her eyes.

“Seriously though,” he adds, his voice lower. “I want you safe today. It would suck if we had to call our date short just because of the coast guard.”

“And miss out on some hot seamen action? I don’t think so.”

Logan smirks and glances at his toes. “What, I’m not hot seamen enough for you?”

She tips an eyebrow at him. “I’ll let you know when you take off that vest.”

The vest and Logan’s shirt are off in an instant. She almost thinks he’d had it planned that way.

Logan works out and has the body to prove it. He might not be on the wrestling team…or whatever…but the man sure knew what he was doing to look so good topless. Veronica knows her lower lip is hanging open just a little, and it takes a little too long to care.

“If you say _now you_ to me, Logan, I swear to God…”

Logan laughs and takes a step toward her. It’s a testament to his good body that she doesn’t immediately shrink away from intimidation.

***

Logan positions her at the wheel while he casts off the anchor (a phrase Veronica is insisting on using; she didn’t spend twenty minutes looking up pirate jargon last night for nothing), but he meets her back at it before she can turn on the engine. It clicks automatically, as if it were waiting for them (or as if it were expensive).

Veronica tenses at the feel of the engine vibrating through her hands and feet.

“You get used to it,” Logan explains, his voice a little louder than normal to be heard over the din. Veronica nods, and Logan puts his hands over hers. He’s still shirtless.

Veronica immediately sees the error of this position. “Okay maybe you better do this,” she says, ducking beneath Logan’s arms. “I don’t want to be the one to sink the Love Boat.”

Logan smirks, and it’s a testament to his good mood that he doesn’t wag his finger at her for breaking her own rule. He shifts his attention to the _fore_ , and it becomes immediately apparent that this is not Logan’s first time steering this – or maybe any other – boat. One hand on the throttle and the other hand on the wheel, he navigates them smoothly from slip five and out toward open water.

It’s then that Veronica realizes he wasn’t quite using the gas.

“Hold on!” Logan shouts.

Veronica doesn’t quite get to that point before the boat starts to surge forward. It’s not a lurch (that would stall her Le Baron forever), but the speedboat flows too easily from _doggy paddle_ to _men’s 100 meter Olympic freestyle_. Veronica is now not at all surprised Logan has her wearing the orange life vest.

“You okay?” he shouts again.

Veronica has found the passenger’s seat. There may be a windshield, but she’s pretty sure the force of the gale is pushing her skin back.

She attempts to nod. Logan laughs, and he zips toward the horizon.

Apart from the initial fear that accompanies what is beneath your feet suddenly going much faster than you were anticipating…Veronica realizes (mostly through Logan’s exhilarated expression) that this is actually quite fun. The boat is not going to tip over on the next wave, she learns. It is okay for the boat to sometimes feel airborne, she realizes. The abrasive hum of the engine is normal. Also she needs a hair tie.

Veronica looks toward Logan with her hands at her temples, trying to shield her eyes from the hair that whips through the air like shoelaces.

“Is it really necessary to be going so fast?” she calls out. Logan grins at her, exposing all his teeth, and it’s an infectious feeling; Veronica feels herself shaking her head and grinning back.

She turns toward the forward hull and embraces the speed.

***

“What do you think Wallace is doing right now?”

Logan checks his watch. With his head on the small of Veronica’s back, he has to squint to see in the sun.

“I dunno…looks the end of fifth period now.”

Veronica turns back to her book. _History, fun._ She grins into the pages.

They _moored_ their boot (fancy word for parked) at Two Harbors for now. It’s almost noon and they’re not particularly hungry, so they’d found a patch of grass between the two beaches on this western part of the island and settled in for awhile.

Logan had dressed for boating (the closest he had to white clothing – _not the Love Boat my foot_ ) and Veronica had dressed for swimming (okay so she did bring a bikini and she is wearing it underneath her shorts and t-shirt). Hiking might happen the next time they come here. The beaches felt a little too crowded for now.

Logan rolls onto his stomach and kisses Veronica just above her beltline. “Whatcha reading?” he asks, knowing the question is annoying to anyone actually invested in their literature.

“Old Man and the Sea,” Veronica sighs. She can practically hear Logan’s raised eyebrows. “It’s for school you goof.”

“Okay good,” Logan says. “Because I am not turning this into a fishing expedition and an allegory for the futility of man.”

***

“Oh my god I’m going to burp,” Veronica says, feeling most unladylike after lunch in the more town-like eastern side of Catalina. She looks at Logan as if expecting to be reprimanded or mocked for being less than princess-like. He’s merely grinning at her.

“Let ‘er rip, V Mars!” he goads, and with a grin she lets out a small belch.

***

Walking out of the restaurant and down toward the Avalon pier she finds where to place the blame.

“It’s your fault for letting me order all that food.”

Logan grins at her gamely. “It’s your fault for being so adorable,” he says back. He throws an arm around her shoulders and pulls her in for a quick kiss. “Plus then you wouldn’t taste like nachos.”

***

They go and see a movie at the local movie house – the only one that’s on Catalina Island. He’d promised her dinner and a movie after all; dinner had turned into lunch, but movie he could still keep. It was some action/comedy/romance flick that kept them vaguely entertained, but they kept losing the plot in favor of making out in the back row without getting noticed.

Now back in the fresh air and coming sunset, Veronica and Logan don’t really know what to do with their time. They go to the beach, get ice cream cones, and Veronica shows off the bikini she’d brought.

“Do you think any of these guys has a bigger boat than you?” she says, voice coy while surveying the other beach-goers.

Logan pretends to smoke a cigar. “Hey what are you saying I have a plenty big boat.”

It makes her laugh.

***

They start heading back to the short just as the descending sun turns the sky orange, pink, and lavender.

Curled in the passenger seat wearing a chunky sweater, Veronica can’t help but observe that it’s been a _perfect_ _day._ Everything about their time together has been fun and wonderful, and Logan has been the perfect companion. She watches him steer from the corner of her eye, chin on her knees, thinking private thoughts about whether he’s going to get lucky. She kind of wants to get him lucky. She kind of thinks she’s lucky herself.

It’s completely dark by the time the Albacore Club comes back into view.

The timing’s perfect for a candlelit dinner, and she’s sure she’s seen some candlesticks on this boat somewhere.

As they pull into the dock, Veronica and Logan realize one of the other docked boats is throwing a party. Young people shout from the deck of their docked boat, and loud music thuds heavily throughout the quay. This town being Neptune (home of Spring Break fever and _their own_ Neptune High) Veronica isn’t necessarily surprised.

But she _is_ surprised to hear the absolute last voice she ever expected to hear on this perfect day.

“ _Logan!_ ”

It’s Dick Casablancas.

Veronica instinctually dives below the console and looks up at Logan. Logan is looking down at her with wide eyes.

“Please don’t tell me that’s Dick Casablancas.”

Logan presses his lips together consolingly. “It’s Harry Potter then.”

Veronica sighs. “Shit. What is he even doing here?”

“It’s Neptune,” Logan starts to explain. He sounds bitter. “There aren’t a lot of places to park expensive boats in Neptune.”

Veronica shoves a hand into her hair. Her opinion is to bolt – just turn the boat around and go as far away as possible – go back to Catalina, build a house, go to college at…Catalina University, maybe start a business renting out…camera…equipment she’s still working on the details but the point is to _run._

Logan is thinking about the same thing. He doesn’t have any camera skills but he can juggle so there’s that.

“What should I do?” Logan asks, and Veronica looks up at him again.

“Any chance we have enough gas to get to Mexico?”

They both realize there’s no escaping Dick Casablancas when he yells out “ _Loooogaaannn!_ ” again, followed by something crude and unladylike.

So Logan steers the boat back into the slip and Veronica chews on her fingernails wondering what’s going to happen when Dick finds out that Logan is not only _not_ _alone_ but on a boat with Veronica Mars, and that she’s wearing a bikini underneath her sweater and shorts. _Shit!_

Logan throws the dock line toward the dock cleat and Veronica hides between console and jump seat. Logan and a short wall fence her in. There’s about three boats between the Echolls slip and the party boat, but Dick is between them and the parking lot. If there was a good phrase for it Veronica’s sure it would be something like _Dickblocking_ ; she’ll look it up later.

Dick jogs over to their slip. Veronica can hear his feet bouncing on the wooden slats that make up the dock. His voice suddenly sounds far too close, and Veronica’s heart sounds like it’s beating inside her ears. “Logan I had no idea - you weren’t at school today I didn’t know you were here! You shoulda told me you were going to play hooky!”

“Yeah,” Logan says, calling loud enough so that Dick won’t feel the need to come aboard. “Sorry I just needed like a day to myself - or something - I don’t know.” She’s pretty sure Logan has been better at lying.

“Dude that’s so gay.”

Logan frowns. “What would be gayer is going on a three hour cruise with you, Dick.”

“Fair point!”

Dick goes back to partying (his footsteps bounce away and there are cheers when he returns to his party), and Logan looks at Veronica. Logan and Veronica know that they’re stuck there – that _she’s_ stuck there – and that they have two options. He could introduce her as his girlfriend – as the girl that he’s seeing – as the girl whose breath tastes like nachos – or…

_Or…?_

“I have a plan,” Logan says, voice confident.

Veronica looks at him just as seriously. “It better not involve me going over there and making best friends with Dick Casablancas tonight because that is not something I’m prepared to do – that is not something I’m prepared to do right now Logan.”

Logan sort of laughs.

“No, that was not my plan,” he says.

“Well I really don’t think that Dick will buy some story about this being a platonic voyage.”

“True.”

“And you are _not_ dressing me up like a sea witch and trying to convince him you found me trapped in a net.”

Logan laughs out loud. Veronica smiles halfway. She would have smiled all the way if she didn’t know Dick was in hearing distance.

“Look,” Logan says. “There’s a bunk below deck and some books and stuff. Hang out for an hour, maybe two hours tops. I’ll go over to Dick’s boat, I’ll get him super drunk, and I’ll be back and we can pick up right where we left off.”

There’s something about the way a man says _right where we left off_ that leaves very little to the imagination. Veronica feels a coil of warmth deep in her body. She wonders about getting lucky again. She wonders if that’s what she wants to do and wonders if that’s what she wants to let happen.

“Yeah we’ll see,” she says. There’s a promise in her statement, but also a warning. It says don’t get your hopes up, but, I’ll stay.

When she’s sees the back of Logan, Veronica’s shoulders slump and she decides to explore the rest of the ship.

They’d spent all of their time off of it or feeling the breeze whipping through their hair and she hasn’t really gone below, but there is a small staircase that leads right below the steering wheel and it apparently doesn’t go to the boat’s engine.

When she walks down she sees that there’s an entire little room in there. There’s a little – I guess you would call it a galley kitchen – you know, like two-square feet of counter space, a mini fridge and a hot plate – she guesses that counts as a kitchen. The mini fridge has some tupperware spaghetti and salad inside. _Candlelit dinner for one, I guess._

There’s also a miniature bathroom and a bed. The bed takes up most of the space, and then she reminds herself that this _is_ Aaron Echolls’ boat after all. The bed is low to the ground - it doesn’t have much of a ceiling - and there’s really only one way to crawl in and out of it. But it is, undoubtedly, a bed, and it’s big enough for two people.

The linens look clean: dark blue duvet, tan sheets…it all looks very expensive and clean, as if Logan had made the bed himself. She thinks that probably the person who set out the pineapple and stocked the fridge for dinner also brought the fresh linens and did a quick clean-up job.

There’s also a very small bookshelf, and it’s filled with the sort of books she’s sure have never been read by anyone who’d come aboard this boat. Considering she now has an hour, maybe two, to herself, she picks up one of the books and starts reading. It’s pretty dry, and it takes a while to get into it, but an hour passes relatively quickly. Into the second hour she decides she’s pretty bored.

She tries to read, she tries to use her cellphone to text Wallace and then she realizes she has nothing to tell him that she could tell him. Her bag is also just pretty empty. _The Old Man and the Sea_ was a short read, and she didn’t bring any other homework with her because she knew she wasn’t going to school, and, uh, that’s about it. Veronica goes up onto deck, but has to make sure she stays low enough not to be seen by Dick and his friends. This whole stake-out thing or hidden boyfriend/girlfriend thing is starting to really lose its appeal.

She hears Logan’s laughter and feels instantly jealous. Why is he having fun and she’s stuck on this boat? It doesn’t seem fair.

She guesses Logan is technically worth it, and she wonders why. They’ve been at this sort secret relationship thing for over two weeks now, and she wonders (not for the first time) why they’re even doing it to begin with. _I mean, it is to spare Duncan’s feelings obviously_ , but there are people in her life who aren’t Duncan who she hasn’t told, and she wonders why she feels this excessive need to protect her and Logan’s secret.

Is it Logan? Is it the guy? It must be, and that in itself is totally confusing. Logan is Logan Echolls. Logan is the guy she was kind of friends with before her best friend died, and ever since he’s been the guy who blamed her for her best friend’s death and has been a total asshole who’s made her life a living hell.

She has no logical idea of why she feels so drawn to this man, and why she is sitting on his boat at 9 o’clock at night waiting for him to get his friends drunk so he can come back and hang out with her. That just makes no sense at all.

She finds it difficult to argue that there isn’t something there though, something besides the animalistic urge of wanting to be around someone, or just the urge to be around someone because they can make you laugh sometimes. There’s just something nondescript drawing her to Logan Echolls that has never drawn her to anyone else before.

She and Logan just seem like…. _like_ … That’s about as far as she gets. English has never been her favorite subject and she’s never considered herself particularly eloquent. She finds comfort in two ultimatums: yes, or no. Things are black, or white, and the shades of gray are the complicated parts that usually boil down to one of the two polarities in the end. Something is either a little more black or a little more white. Finding a true gray is…rare.

Logan seems like a true gray.

***

She’s dipping her toes into the cold, probably gross, probably filled with hidden terrors bay when she hears Logan amble back. She doesn’t know what time it is; she stopped checking because it was simply too depressing. But her guess is past midnight.

She’s been listening to the sounds of Dick and some other guys – at least five or six others from the sounds of it – partying for the last while, really finding it _totally_ amusing when Dick or someone says something idiotic like “ _Guys, watch me pee into the neighbor’s boat!” “Oh, man, you got the porthole!” “Oh man that’s so awesome!”_

This has not been the height of polite society.

Logan finds her in the back of the boat – the aft, as she has been mentioning all afternoon – and he introduces himself with a quiet, “Hey.”

She turns at the sound of his voice. “Hey,” she says back, her voice probably as soft-sounding as his. She’s glad that he’s back, but she’s also tired.

“Are the guys passed out?”

Logan shrugs. “I think so…I honestly, could not care less.”

He joins Veronica at the the end of the boat, takes off his shoes and dips his toes into the water beside hers. “Sorry about that.”

“Ah, it’s not your fault,” she finds herself saying, and meaning. “You and your boat folk seem to run together.” He snorts, and Veronica looks over at him. He smells just a little bit sweaty, but doesn’t seem at all drunk.

“Are you…are you _sober?_ ”

Logan frowns into the water. “You’d be surprised how little you feel like drinking when all you want to do is leave.”

Veronica’s heart softens a little.

“And then you’d be surprised how easy it is to fake taking shots when all your friends are drunk, and how easy it is to pretend to be something you’re not around people who’ve known you almost all your life.”

Veronica frowns sadly at him. A thought flits through her mind, because Logan seems so lonely for a moment. It flits through her mind because she does have real friends, who would notice if she were drunk or not, and would care whether she was having a good time. _Do you have any friends at all?_

“Well I think the end-result was worth it,” Veronica says, her voice a forced version of light and airy. Logan turns toward her.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” Veronica says, a more legitimate grin poking out her cheeks. “I mean, if you hadn’t done that…then I wouldn’t be able to do this.”

She leans over and kisses him.

Logan kisses back slowly, matching her speed and matching her pressure. “You’re right,” he agrees, when she leans back. “If I hadn’t done that I wouldn’t be able to do… _this_.”

He pulls her backwards to the bottom of the boat, and it’s there that he kisses her more soundly. It’s all tongue and open lips, and hands that wander around hips, and up shirts, until they’re tangled into one another, almost like fish caught in a net. Veronica likes that analogy, and almost says it out loud. She might have been able to, except that Logan’s thigh presses into her crotch and she gasps.

“Shh,” he hushes, before he nips at her neck. There is still dull, nondescript noise coming from the Casablancas boat. Veronica presses the side of her head to Logan’s temple, and he kisses the skin of her neck. His hand squeezes her ass, Veronica bites her lip, and she presses the joint of her jean shorts into Logan’s tan corduroy-covered thigh. His breath on her neck she grinds into him, her fingers tightening around his bicep. They’re still laying side by side on the boat, and Veronica pushes herself up so she can straddle him, dipping her head so she can kiss him from above.

It’s as much to cool her racing thoughts as her spinning libido. _Whoa girl._

Logan lets her stop, because things are getting a little too hot and heavy for the Albacore Club.

“How’s that for a sea witch.”

Logan laughs.

“Even in your fantasies you’re not a mermaid? What, you don’t think you can compete with Daryl Hannah?”

She pokes him in the chest to distract from her warming cheeks. “Maybe I just don’t think you can compete with a 1980’s Tom Hanks.”

Logan settles his back against the floorboards and hums his agreement. “No arguments there.”

He smiles softly, genuine affection marking his gaze. Veronica kisses his lips lightly, then his nose, and then she straightens her back and grins down at him.

She can feel his abdominal aortic pulse against her core. It travels through sweater and jean, and does dizzying things to her insides.

Veronica slides off him, and they lay on their back staring up at the stars. She huffs out a calming breath, trying to dispel her nerves.

There’s not a whole lot of light pollution by this part of the coast, but there’s enough. They can make out the Big Dipper, they can make out Orion’s Belt, but after that they would have to know a lot more about astrology so they sort of give up and just talk.

“Hey,” she asks, deciding to indulge a line of thought that was making her curious, maybe because the pulse between her thighs is still throbbing gently. “I was going to ask you about the bed that is below deck.”

If it weren’t so dark she’s pretty sure she would have seen Logan’s cheeks turn bright red.

“It’s…I…it’s just sort of part of the package. I sort of just asked Rosarita to get some food and…pretty sure she only knows one way to set up this boat.”

“It _is_ totally appropriate that I’m totally skeeved out right now, correct?”

Logan props himself up on one elbow, and looks down into her eyes. “I _do_ think that’s appropriate, yes.”

“You weren’t thinking…” Veronica says, toying with the sweater that hangs off his chest, her voice low. “That you were going to get lucky, or anything tonight, right?”

“Me? Lucky? Well I did play the lotto this morning, but other than that…” He’s being a little coy, but totally honest. It makes her grin and want to rip off his shirt.

So she does.

“Okay! Getting mixed signals here,” Logan announces.

Veronica stands, still aware of Dick and his friends just a few hundred feet away.

“Yeah, mixed signals,” she ponders aloud, walking towards the fore of the boat, where the steering wheel is, where that little set of stairs is that leads below deck. “Yeah…totally mixed…I probably wouldn’t…make out with the next guy who followed me down here…probably wouldn’t let him get under my shirt. Probably wouldn’t take off his pants and take off my pants and see what happened after that, either.”

She’s not sure if Logan’s still alive, because it really sounds like he’s stopped breathing.

***

The next day breaks foggy and gray, and sunrise finds Veronica and Logan sitting on a dock with a bag of bread rolls.

They’re giggling and feeding the amassed seagulls, who crowd at their feet like a twitchy carpet. It’s so early that there’re barely any joggers out. No one is up this early because why would they, it’s Saturday, you should be doing something more productive like sleeping. Kisses are offered and received after feeding bites of bread to each other.

“I should really go,” Veronica says, after a particularly thorough kiss.

“And risk the revolt of the seagulls? We still have half a bag left.”

Veronica giggles. She glances at the bag, rolls her eyes, and upturns the entire thing, so the rolls go bouncing toward the dock. “It’s a feast,” she declares, and Logan does something strange.

He almost frowns. The corners of his lips dip at the corners, his expression freezes mid-thought, and he turns away from her.

“What?” she probes, leaning into his space.

Logan doesn’t respond right away. He looks down at his shoes, and starts crumbling what’s left of his roll on the ground to the distracted birds. “Is it wrong that I don’t want this date to end?” he asks, voice quiet, as if admitting something personal.

Veronica leans heavily on his shoulder. “No,” she says, completely serious. A light breeze fusses with her clothes and hair. She turns, so her other cheek rests on Logan’s arm, and she’s looking behind them and toward the quay full of boats. “But I do think Dick and his friends will be waking up soon.”

They both know she’s right, but it dampers Logan’s mood even more.

The morning sky around them is fortifying quickly, and they know it’s time to go home. With their thighs touching, dispersing carbohydrates to these annoying white and gray sea rats, it’s easy to forget that anything else exists. It’s easy to diminish all the other obligations that they have in the world, because it is so nice to be with one another.

Veronica knows she has things to do today; it is Saturday, afterall, and that means homework and work for her dad’s firm. There’re a few petty crooks she has to tail and also a history paper to write, but that’ll get done later. For right now she’s going to enjoy the way her hand feels in Logan’s, and enjoy the way he looks at her in the gray, foggy morning.

That thought comes back to her, uninvited, and she turns her cheek again so that Logan can wrap an arm around her shoulders and pull her close enough to kiss her forehead.

Why Logan? Why this secret? Why do they feel such an urge to protect this dumb thing that they have together?

Again she has no real answer. The only answer is in the proof of her actions. She is there. She’s there, feeding seagulls with him, at maybe six in the morning on a gray and foggy Saturday.

 


End file.
